The present invention relates to a method of casting a cylinder liner with water jacket. More particularly, the method teaches the use of at least one styrofoam blank within a mold, the blank being identical in configuration to the cylinder liner cast with the method and defining a chamber therewithin which, when filled with sand prior to casting, will produce the passageway defining a circumferential water jacket. The method is applicable for use in both vertical and horizontal casting techniques.
Heretofore, various methods of casting a cylinder liner with water jacket have been proposed. Also, casting may be accomplished in either a vertical or horizontal orientation.
Typically, such casting methods provide a mold which is multisectional, with the sections being positioned to define an air space between inner and outer mold sections which when filled with molten metal, define the cylinder liner. When it is desired to incorporate a water jacket into the liner, a complex core of solidified sand must be produced which, when suspended within the air space between the inner and outer mold sections, will not be replaced by the molten metal, thus creating a water path between inner and outer surfaces of the liner.
To accommodate suspension of such core, which may be of one or more sections, each section includes a plurality of radial arms which extend outwardly of the core and which must engage and be precisely supported by multiple outer sections of the mold for concentricity. This complexity of methodology requires the mold to be complex, of great precision, and therefore time consuming to arrange. It is thus inherently costly.
Further, cylinder liners are presently cast one at a time, due to complexity of the methodology used in creation thereof.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a simplified, and less costly, method of casting a cylinder liner with water jacket.
This object, as well as others, is accomplished by the method of the present invention wherein at least one foam blank conforming to the shape of the cylinder liner with water jacket is created and positioned within a mold, the blank including a circumferential cylindrical chamber therein and being coated with core wash, the mold and cylindrical chamber being filled with sand prior to introduction of molten metal into the mold, the molten metal replacing the foam blank, with the foam, dissipated by the heat of the metal, escaping from within the mold in the form of gas, with sand in the chamber being drained via a drain after cooling and removal of the casting, to define the water jacket flow path, with the drain being plugged after drainage of sand therethrough.